Category: immigration

During the Adult Education and Family Literacy Week (AEFL Week), we have been promoting the value of and the need for adult education in the U.S. Advancing adult education and English language acquisition benefits not only individuals and their families but also their communities and the nation’s economy. By offering educational opportunities to adults, we help them achieve economic independence and social mobility.

But advocating for adult education should not be limited to just one week a year. It is important that we bring awareness about the need for adult education every day. Below is a list of resources for anyone who wants to get involved in advocating for adult education and family literacy.

COABE/NCSDAE Educate & Elevate Campaign – A national campaign to help policy makers understand the value of Adult Education. The website offers a helpful toolkit for organizations and individuals who want to get involved in the campaign.

National Coalition for Literacy – a national coalition of the national organizations and other advocates dedicated to advancing adult education, family literacy, and English language acquisition in the U.S.

Project Literacy – a global campaign founded and convened by Pearson that aims to end illiteracy by 2030 through partnership and action.

“Low literacy has a major impact on income inequality and parenting.” Read this AEFL Week Fact Sheet from the National Coalition for Literacy.

According to American Community Survey (ACS) data from 2015, there are approximately 43 million immigrants in the U.S., which accounts for about 13.5 percent of the total U.S. population (321.4 million in 2015).i Furthermore, according to the Current Population Survey (CPS) from 2016, immigrants and their U.S.-born children totaled approximately 84.3 million people—27 percent of the overall U.S. population.

In 2015, immigrants accounted for about 17 percent (26.7 million) of the nearly 161 million workers in the civilian labor force in the U.S. The percentage of immigrant workers more than tripled (from 5 percent to 17 percent), between 1970 and 2015. Of the total number of immigrant workers:

31 percent worked in management and professional occupations;
24 percent in the service sector;
16.9 percent in sales and office occupations;
13.1 percent in construction and maintenance;
15 percent in production and transportation business.

The top five states with the highest immigration population were California (10.7 million), Texas (4.7 million), New York (4.5 million), Florida (4.1 million), and New Jersey (2 million).

Demographically, approximately 51 percent of immigrants in 2015 were women. Immigrants were also older than the native-born population—the median age of immigrants was about 44 years in 2015, whereas the median age for the native-born population was 36.

Immigrants with Limited English Proficiency (LEP)

In 2015, there were nearly 26 million individuals in need of English Literacy. ii These individuals are classified as Limited English Proficient (LEP) and represent 9 percent of the total U.S. population ages 5 or older. Out of that number, nearly 5 million LEP individuals are native-born and 21 million are foreign-born. The 21-million number represents approximately 49 percent of the 43 million immigrants ages 5 and older who were LEP.

The overwhelming majority (75%) of LEP individuals were adults between ages 18 and 64. About 16 percent of LEP individuals were adults 65 and over. LEP children constituted 9 percent of the total LEP population.

In general, LEP individuals were less educated than English-proficient individuals. Forty-five percent of LEP adults 25 years old and older did not possess a high school diploma (compared to 9 percent of English-proficient adults). Only about 15 percent of LEP adults had a college diploma (bachelor’s degree or higher), compared to 32 percent of English-proficient individuals.

English Language Education for Adult Learners

According to the 2015 data, 1.5 million adults were enrolled in adult education programs.iii Out of the 1.5 million, 44 percent of adult students were English Language Learners (ELLs). These numbers indicate that only a fraction of LEP adults are served by adult education programs, and most states have waiting lists because of limited funding.

The population of ELLs attending English language courses is very diverse, representing adults from many different cultures, languages, educational backgrounds, and socio-economic and life situations. Many of these learners face very difficult financial circumstances, even though they often work long hours outside the home. Some of the ELLs are refugees from countries torn by wars or conflicts, and many deal with emotional and psychological traumas due to their experiences. The adults attending English literacy programs might possess post-secondary education, or they might be migrant workers from Central America with interrupted education. Some might have low literacy skills in their native language, and some have very little schooling and no written language.iv

Demographically, according to the National Reporting System (NRS) data for years 2014– 2016, about 64 percent of ELLs attending English literacy programs were women. Fifty-six percent of adults in these programs were between the ages of 25 and 44.v

Learning English is not an easy task for adults, especially those with low literacy skills in their native languages. Research shows that adult learners need between 85 and 150 study hours per year for six years in order to gain full English proficiency.vi NRS data indicate that on average, adult ELLs spent 190 hours per year, but two-thirds of them completed only one full level of education. Approximately 40 percent of ELLs completed more than one full level of education.vii What is important to note, however, that the levels most completed by ELLs are the beginning and intermediate levels (NRS Beginning ESL-Literacy–NRS Low-Intermediate ESL). ELLs at these proficiency levels do not have sufficient skills for successful transition into post-secondary education.

The Importance of English Literacy Programs

The importance of English literacy programs cannot be overstated. Since LEP individuals are more likely to live in poverty than their English-proficient counterparts (in 2015, about 23 percent of LEP individuals lived below the official federal poverty line compared to 13 percent of English-proficient individuals),viii adult education and family literacy programs are crucial to help these individuals improve their lives by giving them skills they need to succeed in a career, post-secondary training, family life, and society.

Allows adults to obtain more specialized training or pursue college education.

Allows immigrants to be involved in their children’s education. Research indicates that children of English-proficient parents achieve higher educational and workforce outcomes.x

Helps immigrants obtain citizenship and engage in all aspects of civic and community life.

Promoting Adult Education and English Language Learning

Advancing adult education and English language acquisition benefits not only immigrants and their families but also their communities and the nation’s economy. By offering educational opportunities to adults, we help them achieve economic independence and social mobility. A number of organizations are involved in advocating for adult education in the U.S. If you are interested in promoting the value and benefits of adult education and English language learning, explore the sites listed below and get engaged!

v State-Administered Adult Education Program Enrollment of Participants by Age and Enrolled in ESL Functioning Levels Program Year: 2014–2016, using the United States Department of Education’s Office of Adult and Vocational Education’s National Reporting System figures retrieved from: http://wdcrobcolp01.ed.gov/CFAPPS/OVAE/NRS/login.cfm

(This article is excerpted from a longer article I published in the Texas Adult Education and Literacy Quarterly, 18, 2, pp. 1-3, Spring 2014.)

How many of you can raise your hand if I ask you about the 2012 PIAAC report? How many of you understand its implications? Interestingly, as I talk to adult educators around the nation, many, if not most, tell me they have never heard of PIAAC. Even many who say they heard of the report are uncomfortable articulating reasons why this study has serious implications for the practice of adult education. So, what is PIAAC?

Released in October 2013 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for its member nations, the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a cyclical study of the literacy, numeracy, reading, and problem-solving competencies of adults 16 to 65 in the USA and 22 other countries. Many of the comparison countries are among the twenty largest economies in the world.

Adults in the United States underperformed most of their counterparts in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments. The USA ranked 13 out of 24 countries in English language skills, 19 out of 24 in numeracy, and 15 in problem solving skills. Over 36 million adults in the US have low literacy skills and fully one out every three adults have weak numeracy compared with the average across countries of one out of every five adults surveyed. Low level skills are distributed throughout different demographics in the USA, so that not only we have a larger percentage of adults with low skills but also a smaller proportion of the adult population has skills at the higher levels. When racial and ethnic variables are considered, minorities are over-represented among those with low competencies; 43 percent of Hispanics and over 30 percent of Blacks score at the lowest levels of literacy used in the PIAAC study. When confronted with the dismal findings, many critics will counter that it is unfair to compare adults in the United States with counterparts in smaller nations or in countries with different or more homogeneous demographics. However, one reason to be concerned is that the study compares our performance with that of adults in the other developed countries of the OECD, that is, the countries with which we compete for a slice of the global jobs pie.

Other findings

According to the PIAAC study, while adults in the USA have a higher rate of participation in adult education and training than adults in other countries, those who need the training the most are the least likely to get it. Those of us working as administrators in adult education and literacy need to evaluate our programs; those of us who teach need to take a careful look at the teaching learning interaction in our classrooms, and those of us who focus on professional development must assess our training programs in order to determine why, in spite of the higher participation rate in education programs, our adults not only perform below average internationally but also show that we are getting worse instead of better over the last two decades.

It is also worth considering that the United States is not doing as well as other countries educating our youth; a separate OECD report on the skills of in-school 15 year olds (PISA, 2012) shows our young students scoring below their international counterparts in literacy and numeracy. The challenge is that while other countries have been able to address the skills gap of previous generations, youth in the United States don’t perform better, and often underperform their parents and grandparents.

The challenge to adult educators

It should be apparent now why I find it perplexing that so few in our field have taken the time to learn about this study. I think that understanding the implications of the PIAAC study is a must for to educators and policymakers alike. We know of the challenges our students with low literacy levels face obtain employment and to succeed in other personal or training endeavors. It is noteworthy that according to the report, the United States has one of the highest percentages of available jobs requiring skills at a high school level or above. In other words, while most jobs in demand in this country require higher literacy skills, our adult population has lower skills than the countries we compete with.

So, what are we to do with this knowledge? It seems to me that our first gut-reaction should be to acknowledge loudly that what we have been doing in adult education is not working. We need to rethink literacy education and very purposefully integrate numeracy and technology-enabled problem solving in all our adult education programs. And beyond that, we need to see the PIAAC report as a call to action and we should respond each within our purview because only collective action will address the massive challenges. Adult educators must be proactive and sit at the table as solutions for the problem in K-12 are considered because the literacy crisis affecting our adults is made worse by an ongoing flow of under-skilled youth.

Federico Salas-Isnardi has 30 years of experience in Adult Education and second language acquisition. He has conducted hundreds of workshops on many aspects of adult education, literacy, and ESL and has focused on intercultural and diversity training as well as social justice issues affecting students and teachers for over 25 years.

Federico served on the team that developed the US Naturalization test and is one of the authors of Future US Citizens and a consultant to the Future English for Results series.

The goal of the Adult Education and Family Literacy Week is to raise public awareness about the value of adult education and family literacy, and to leverage resources and increase access to basic education programs for 36 million U.S. adults with low literacy skills and 26 million individuals with Limited English Proficiency (LEP).

During the Adult Education and Family Literacy Week, Pearson ELT USA re-affirms its dedication to adult education and to adults who are learning English to achieve their educational, career, and life achievement goals.

During the week, we will be promoting adult education on this blog and social media platforms to help raise awareness about the need for adult education and family literacy. Please return to this site every day for interesting facts, articles, resources, and student success stories. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@PearsonELTUSA) for updates and information related to Adult Education and family literacy.

Finally, we ask you to promote the value of adult education with your community and your legislators:

Tweet about adult education with the handle #AEFLWeek. You can use the social-media-ready posts from the National Coalition for Literacy. Click here to access the site.

Contact your legislators to remind them about the importance of adult education. Use this easy tool from the Coalition for Adult Basic Education to send an email to your legislators.

Explore the resources from the National Coalition for Literacy Members and Associates to make this year’s AEFL Week Special

On September 5, 2017 the Administration announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Below is a list of resources for educators of DACA participants and their families.